Som(a)niloquy » Gaming

God Games Never Sell – NOT!

Cryptopur — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:15:21 +0000

The last session of CGDC this year was a roundtable discussion that opened with Mark Soderwall’s observation that where faith-laden works had made real headway in movies and books, when it came to games Christian content had scored a “big Goose Egg.” Now to be fair, Mark’s assertion was not accepted by all the members [...]

On The Future of Game Publishing

Cryptopur — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:01:03 +0000

by Gavin Nichols The other day, Soren Johnsen posted a tweet that really caught my interest. He said “The next console generation will be won by whoever understands why the Xbox Indie Games Channel did not become the iOS App Store.’ This is true in so many ways. The iOS App store has enjoyed an [...]

Morsels Of Memory Management

Cryptopur — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:14:49 +0000

So if there's one thing I'm learning in my career shift to "mobile developer," it's that computer programming is a science and that I'm not a scientist.

Previous thesis statement: memory is a magical unlimited resource. 200 mb webapp? No big deal - my desktop has plenty to spare. Zombie objects? Let 'em be, they're not hurting any one.

New thesis statement: memory management stinks. Texture memory? Draw calls? GPU? Power of 2 Textures? This is starting to smell a lot like the low lands of computer science and less like the flowered fields of Scriptable Mesa in the land of GigaBytes O'Ram.

They Don’t Call Him The “Creator” For Nothing

Cryptopur — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:00:27 +0000

The premier entertainment electronics show in the world is going on as I write this and one of the feelings coming out of this year’s E3 is that it’s decidedly underwhelming. Dig this quote from a Wired article: “As the E3 Expo, the videogame industry’s annual bombastic show of force, begins anew Tuesday, it’s getting [...]

Hunger and the Video Game Cheeseburger

Cryptopur — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:36:41 +0000

by Ryan Green “So, what is it that you do with computers?” “I make video games.” “Oh! … cool!” “Yeah, I think so…” This is why I got into computer programming. To make games. Any nerd worth their salt in high school wants to make video games. It’s nerd currency. You make games for a [...]

Which Way Gaming

Cryptopur — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:17:06 +0000

I’m sitting here reading Jane McGonigal’s new book “Reality is Broken” and right in the front she says something like “…[a year after her 2008 GDC rant] everywhere I turned I saw evidence this movement to harness the power of games for good was already happening.” Right next to her book I’m looking at some [...]

Taking back the boxed games?: Do you prefer eVersions

adamans — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Are you buying family games this Christmas? We are. We bought a few favorites for the kids, but actually took them back in favor of the eVersions. This was a choice my wife made. That really surprised me. Let me just say in our family, she is not the gadget freak the rest of us [...]

Every Game Has A Worldview – Whether You Like It Or Not

Cryptopur — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:36:04 +0000

No matter how much you may want video games to be plainly fun and devoid of any ethical or moral message (If I had a dollar for every person who said that to me…) it will never happen. The statement is nonsensical on the order of whether or not God can make a rock bigger [...]

Does “Too Human” Mean ‘Ambitious but Flawed?’

Cryptopur — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:10:57 +0000

"Too Human" is an excellent game from the story perspective and we're all about the story, but level design needs to be better to prevent the player from getting bored before the story gets told...